On Wednesday, Motorola took the wraps off its upcoming Xoom tablet. The Xoom will run the tablet-oriented Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” sports a dual core processor, 10.1″ screen, and will be capable of using Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Motorola has pegged the Xoom for release during the first quarter 2011, though the fact that their floor models could only run video demos suggests the Xoom is facing some challenges it will struggle to overcome in time.

The Xoom is roughly the same dimensions as the iPad, with the same diagonal screen measurement, thickness (just over half an inch at 12.9 mm) and weight (1.6 pounds), though the black border surrounding the screen is much thinner. The screen has a 1280×800 resolution, and supports 1080p video playback to an external monitor through an HDMI output.

The Xoom’s underside has a mini-HDMI and a mini-USB port.

Inside, the Xoom packs 1GB of RAM, a 1GHz Tegra 2 dual-core processor, and a battery that Motorola says will power 10 hours of video playback. A front-facing two megapixel camera is on one of the long sides, and the back has a 5 megapixel camera that can also capture 720p HD video. Adobe Flash is supported, and the internal 32GB memory can be supplemented by an SD card.

The back of the Motorola Xoom. The 5MP camera sits in the black bar at top right.

We initially set out to get some hands-on time with the Xoom, but that was a no-go. While Motorola’s booth folk briefly let us hold it to get a sense of the weight and feel, the floor models could only play preloaded videos of the Android interface as it handled e-mail or browsed books, and had no actual functionality to speak of. Though if the interface flows as smoothly as the videos show, the Xoom may turn out to be a pretty formidable tablet effort.

One of the videos showed the Xoom’s pop-up onscreen keyboard.

This seemed like a weirdly adolescent state for a tablet to be in only weeks from its launch, but Motorola reps were adamant that the Xoom would launch during the first quarter. The tablet will only be available on Verizon for use with 3G or WiFi, though Motorola expects it to move up to the 4G LTE network by midyear.

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Zooming in on the Motorola Xoom